Where do you see the world in 2058?

This is meant to be a discussion that is open minded and fun, lets not try to make it too political, all views will be accepted. There is no wrong answer! This very well may not be the best place for me to post this, I was unsure of where I should post it. If it needs to be moved, so be it.

The question is, where do you see the world in 50 years from now. You can make a time line leading up to the date, October 13th, 2058, or you could simply state how you think the world will be, who will be the worlds largest economy, how will technology expand human life potential, etc. It can be a message of hope, I will even entertain the possibility of negativism, as the future is far from certain.


For example,

How will advanced technology shape and mold our lives?

What will space exploration be like?

What will the political environment be like? (The two party system, Government size, will nations be ran differently than they are today, etc.)

What will the life expectancy be? Will 'Actuarial Escape Velocity' (AEV) be reached? (The point at which our life is moving faster than the approach of age-related degeneration etc.)

Will the 'Technological Singularity' have occurred yet?

What will our environment look like?

Who will be the dominant, economic perennial Superpowers?

etc, etc, etc.

What will life be like?

Perhaps the Artilect Wars will have begun. Those are the wars between humans who do and don't want unbridled AI to take over the planet and possibly replace the human race as the dominant force for the planet and eventually beyond.

The question is who wins?

Probably the same as the 2057 show with Michio Kaku. Think iv seen it on like 3 channels hist, science, discovery, etc.

I just want a Sex robit. i don't care about the rest of the technology.

reply to post by West Coast


Intel is predicting the singularity to occur by 2050, so that should be interesting. Moore's law has been one of the only things in the world that has really given me hope for the future. The advance of technology is really amazing to watch. It is almost as if technology is on a different time line with reality right now.

I worry about the future though. This economic collapse that we are going through right now could very well stop all of our scientific progress. Hopefully things turn around, but if they don't then we could face some really bleak times.

I can't even imagine what the world will look like 4 years from now www.abovetopsecret.com... much less 50years. Everything is just too volatile right now.

I'd say if the present course is anything to go by probably a Mad Max type of situation at best.
My thinking is mostly based on oil running out, global warming, the food supply breaking down.

Unfortunately the only other scenario I can imagine is if we manage to get fusion or some other power taking over instead I think we will be way beyond the 1984 book and similar sci-fi in some ways we are already there.

I don't see a bright future the question to me is will we as a species even make it that long there is a lot of possibles and way to much for me to start going over in this thread a few examples would be war or antibiotic resistant viruses.

Don't get me wrong though I'd love to see us evolve beyond things like money, greed and seriously start reaching into space just right now it looks unlikely.

[edit on 13-10-2008 by Teknikal]

Originally posted by harrytuttle
Perhaps the Artilect Wars will have begun. Those are the wars between humans who do and don't want unbridled AI to take over the planet and possibly replace the human race as the dominant force for the planet and eventually beyond.

The question is who wins?

Man will have to go bionic to compete with AI in the future. This will be the true end of humans, as we will be part machine, and human. This does have its benefits, smarter individuals who will have high IQs that will be able to download information to their brain freely, and performing tasks in figuring out complex problems that were previously unsuccessful due to the limitations of the human brain.

I'll be almost 90 by then. What a life huh? I witnessed the home PC, the video games, the end of the Vietnam War, the tail end of the 70's and Duran Duran.

Technology has gone from 0 to 60 in such a short expanse of time...it amazes me when I think of it.

I would hope we will have developed and deployed clean, free burning energies to power our lives.

I would hope medical advances have cured cancers and HIV and AIDS and world hunger...

I hope my daughter isn't left with a huge nasty mess to try to raise her kids and grandkids in.

What is see happening is far different from what I would hope though. I truly hope I'm wrong and we can pull ourselves out of the nose dive.

reply to post by justgeneric


Man I feel sorry for you to have lived through Duran Duran. What was it like?

Only kiddin ya! I know what you mean, I can remember a life without mobile phones but it seems so distant now! Now I have two and they're a pain in the ass!
I also remember my first monochrome monitor'ed IBM pc! And my zx spectrum 48K (i think)

How things have changed in such a short time!

Originally posted by justgeneric
I'll be almost 90 by then. What a life huh? I witnessed the home PC, the video games, the end of the Vietnam War, the tail end of the 70's and Duran Duran.

Believe it or not, you being near 90 years old in the year 2058 will more then likely be quite young (with age replenishment treatment). As AEV is reached, even if it is only 50% reached at that time, the life expectancy could quite easily be a couple hundred years.

I would hope medical advances have cured cancers and HIV and AIDS and world hunger...

The cancer part looks to be much sooner, say around the 2020's.

How will advanced technology shape and mold our lives?

Communication will be cheap and ubiquitous, in developed countries, the Wimax++++ internet grid will be available everywhere. The government spying grid will be just as ubiquitous and very powerful. Contrary to utopian predictions, widespread communications will increase the leverage nasty governments have over their citizens. They will allow a certain amount of underground unregulated chit-chat, but as sson as somebody tries to do something about it, out come the secret police.

What will space exploration be like?

About like today, not very much since there are so many more domestic problems.

What will the political environment be like? (The two party system, Government size, will nations be ran differently than they are today, etc.)

No. There will be different kinds of problems, but the general pattern and governmnets will be like now, with the names changed. It will be China+allies versus everybody else. There will be some #ty dictators---and electronic spying everywhere.

Control of remaining petroleum will be the titanic problem---Saudi Arabia has Chinese ICBM's.

What will the life expectancy be? Will 'Actuarial Escape Velocity' (AEV) be reached? (The point at which our life is moving faster than the approach of age-related degeneration etc.)

Not in the slightest, increasing costs of advance medicine are smashed head on by poverty due to peak oil and climate change.

Will the 'Technological Singularity' have occurred yet?

What will our environment look like?

Very hot. Water is life.

Who will be the dominant, economic perennial Superpowers?

1) China allied with Saudi Arabia for oil, which had stopped being traded on the free market by 2030.

2) Canada will be very wealthy as it is cool, has lots of water and oil. They will have a huge illegal immigration problem---shooting American 'gringos' as they try to cross the border.

3) Northern Europe is doing reasonably well as they converted to electric transportation and they are now moderate in climate, like Italy used to be. They will be in the "last bit of civilization" alliance with Canada---holding off Russia and U.S.---in truce with China, since they let China take all the oil, as they go for renewables.

4) U.S. and especially Russia are both declining wounded but fierce animals. Few want to ally with US, nobody with Russia. Russia is totalitarian, U.S. authoritarian.

5) Middle east without oil is fried to a crisp. Wealthy petrostates build cities underground to escape the heat. Similarly, most of India below the Himilayas is nearly uninhabitable too, from episodes of massive cyclones, drought and heat.



[edit on 14-10-2008 by mbkennel]

[edit on 14-10-2008 by mbkennel]

One tip for you guys, is that the real futurists that get things right, apply some logic to there future. Technology has to be logical for our society, or as you have seen with suppression of new energy, they get put to one side.

thats why with sci fi writers in the 60's saying we would have moon bases by now, they where wrong in eyes of the public anyway. things move in a slow logical way, that society takes small steps too.

Though the last century was amazing in technology leap, i wonder what wonders await all of man kind, in this century. If they fixed this greed thing in all humans, i would think that would be a good thing for us. Though the fact that they are making both males and females, just simple bitches, does not seem to point to that direction.

Are we going to be all bitches forever, that should be the question, lol

One thing that may be around and totally in use by then is this. People may not have to go to prison for light offences. All the authorities will do is give the people a phobia of going out and meeting people, so the person would stay indoors. The phobia would be so strong, they would be frightened of going out. This already exists and may be publically acceptable by then. Most prisoners may be just under house arrest, because the authorities would just control there mind, full stop.

I would say that is definately going to happen, and is happening today, in smaller quantities.

[edit on 10/14/2008 by andy1033]